


Life of Pause

by snapspark



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Ex-EXO, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:24:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7370881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snapspark/pseuds/snapspark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lu Han needs him to pick up the phone call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life of Pause

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in my dream

 

 

How much of getting out unspotted is luck he doesn't know, but Lu Han wasn't going to dawdle in front of the company building to gamble his new 4 AM freedom.  
  
The phone booth isn't that far of a walk if he was dedicated, which he had to be now, after days of holding his breath as they drove past this stall on their way down the hill.  _It pays to be paranoid_ , the phrase repeats itself in an approximate male voice, in his mind. Ten days ago when he heard it for the first time, he'd still remembered which movie it was from.  
  
He rubs his hands inside the booth, rocks on his heels as he squints at the pricing chart, then inserts the coins and dials.  
  
_Doooooo.....  
  
Doooooo.....  
  
The customer you are dialing is currently...._  
  
He tries again. Again.  
  
It's starting to feel chilly. His breath fogs up the window he's leaning against. Lu Han begins tappng his remaining coins against the SKT metal box, eyes unfocusing on the yellow pages book hanging right by his head which looks gigangic in his vision. His gaze follows the instrutional procedures on a poster stuck to another pane of glass, tracing the numbers but not reading the small Korean letters crammed onto the page like handfuls of sesame.  
  
_The customer you are dialing...._  
  
"Come on—"  
  
His whisper echoes and it scares himself briefly. Lu Han sharply sighs, then pulls out his phone from his pocket, tapping the passcode in a millisecond. He scowls down at the hostile glare of his screen but gets the job done.  
  
In a wechat, conservatively:  
  
_I need you to pick up_  
  
Two more tries later when he's just starting to kick at his shoelaces, the call connects.  
  
  
  
  
  
『 Do you have any idea what time it is here? 』  
  
" _Really_? You're in China."  
  
A chuckle, slightly static through the feedback.  
  
"Sorry though."  
  
At the end of the line, Wu Yifan lets out a languid groan, followed by a heavy inhale, and thankfully no questions. Lu Han hears him turn in his sheets.  
  
『 Well, we're here. What's up? 』  
  
He cuts to it, maybe because he's been anxious for days to hear it said aloud.  
  
"I've been thinking I should leave, too."  
  
『  _Should_? 』  
  
"I mean. I want to leave."  
  
A long pause...   
  
『 It won't be easy. 』  
  
Yifan concludes, after a minute. 'It' means a lot of things, which Lu Han didnt need to ask.  
  
"I know."  
  
Yifan is beginning feel like this is the extent of the conversation, more a declaration of war, on Lu Han's part, which he felt the need to share, and perhaps that alone is enough. Still, there are things Yifan could ask rather than this silence. How have you been? So what's the problem? Do you need any sort of help? What made you call me now, for the first time since I gave you this number?  
  
『 You think you'll do it? 』  
  
"I've been looking around online for a while, asking some people. Haven't really told anyone yet."  
  
Yifan knows the real answer, which Lu Han doesn't yet, because Yifan has always visualized his decisions in linear progressions. Not in the way that Zhang Yixing did, strictly and unwaveringly linear. Sometimes Yifan thought Yixing's steadfastness was idiotic, but he understood they were different in their motives. Other times it saved him just being in its periphery, as it did Lu Han, for a long time, before he started having thoughts about age, about dreams, filial duties, soccer, general reality which their profession seems to float above, in their own little sky observatories like the clouds they liked to paint on the training room walls.  
  
But Lu Han isn't Zhang Yixing and so Wu Yifan could see where this is heading.  
  
『 What are you leaving from, exactly? 』  
  
Lu Han could have more than this. Easily. He's calling him now needing an urgent answer before sunrise. Lu Han's always thought about more, about freedom, but also more, and he's thinking of it now, and he's calling Wu Yifan because he already knows he should stop thinking about it. And no matter what Wu Yifan says by the end of this placebo conversation Lu Han will have allowed himself to be convinced of the reality.  
  
If Wu Yifan thought enough about it he knows he could answer his own questions: the problem is nothing feels great but everything feels okay, as it always has, and that he wants something else as much as he wants anything, as he always has. He doesn't really need help—they both witnessed the progression, not the straight line, but the exact fork in the road where the tree branches off of a path you can never return. He is calling for a reminder. Wu Yifan doesn't quite relate, but he can understand.  
  
Lu Han's chewing on the skin of his lip, twirling his phone in his hand, like a frisbee pivoting around the home button.  
  
"Just a break from everything, just for a while," he lies.  
  
There's a few seconds before Wu Yifan speaks, suddenly loud and clear.

『 Do you want this life or not? 』  
  
  
  
He remembers the shock in Huang Zitao's eyes when he looked up from across the table, the out-of-body feeling after he said it, with an anger he himself rarely possessed.  
  
At the usual diner, they were meeting at the usual time, Lu Han was eating  _suanlafen_ , and he had just thrown his disposable chopsticks into the soup, caught a wood splinter which he didn't feel until he picked it up again. Earlier that day Huang Zitao was told he could debut, and it was a week before Zhang Yixing was told the same. Zitao took the ninth spot out of twelve that day and he had said, "I'm not ready, I'm going to ask the company to let me train a few more years."  
  
Day by day Yixing's eyes looked a little less focused, the air of a child nearing the end of his chocolate advent calendar. Wu Yifan refrained from comment but he was attentive as he'd stopped chewing. Huang Zitao was absorbed in anguish for his own insecurities. He looked over and saw that muted look on Yixing slumped quietly beside him and so Lu Han threw his chopsticks into the soup. "Do you want this life or not?"  
  
In his ears he begins to notice the beeping.  
  
When he comes to, Lu Han realizes he's stopped watching the time, and there are only seconds left and he is out of funds.  
  
He hasn't thought up a reply yet. Lu Han tries to think, but all he can do is remember: the day Yixing lifted his eyes from the ground, the quiver of Huang Zitao's blade in his first teaser, the look on Wu Yifan's face when he told Lu Han he was going to leave, the soccer game back in 2013 when his parents came to watch, the name on his jersey.  
  
Lu Han counts down in his head, from  _00:00:15_ , alongside the flashing numbers on the machine.  
  
Four seconds left, and instead of saying yes he hangs up the phone.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
150126  
**ELLE China**  exclusive interview  
        — A modern and bright looking room with one black leather chair. In a background a rack of colorful coats.

(Question 5)  
  
LH:  
_If I could go back to when I was twenty years old, I probably would choose another path of life. Perhaps I would not choose this path of being an artist again, maybe I will choose to become a soccer player._ [a pause]  
  
ELLE:  
[off-camera]  _Do you regret it?_  
  
LH:  
[muffled laugh]  _No._

 

 

 

 

_the end_

**Author's Note:**

> inspired acutely by [this](http://vvu-yi-fan.tumblr.com/post/146531668060/kris-wu-and-liu-yifei-as-cheng-zheng-and-su-yun) for reasons i can't explain, and also the words of a friend: "you can tell wu yifan really wants this career"
> 
> title is an album by wild nothing


End file.
